Sunday, February 25, 2018

So what’s it like to be part of America’s fastest-growing morning team?

“It’s kind of like a marriage,” Bob Lacey says, describing his quarter-century-long relationship with Sheri Lynch, “but without the sex.”

“Which has been a source of grief for me since Day One,” Sheri chimes in, sarcastically.

Bob reconsiders: “Actually, it’s exactly like a marriage.”

The Bob & Sheri Show started back when current flagship WLNK, Charlotte was WBT-FM “Sunny 107.9”. Lacey – already a local talk-radio and TV veteran – was hosting the morning show and the higher-ups decided they wanted to pair him with a female co-host.

One morning, local TV station WBTV sent Sheri – then a marketing department employee who’d been applying to graduate schools – to make an announcement about a programming change at the TV station.

Bob asked Sheri, out of the blue, if he could put her on the air. She killed. He asked if she would come back the next day. She killed again. She was bitingly funny, brutally honest, and even though she’d just met him, she didn’t back down when Lacey tried to mess with her a little.

“I went to the management and I said, ‘This is the person that I want,’ ” Bob recalls. “And they said, ‘No way. She’s inexperienced.’ ” He argued, but they wouldn’t budge.

“So I said, ‘OK,’ and I went across the street to another station, cut a deal with them, came back, and said, ‘I’ve cut a deal across the street. You take her, or I leave.’ And they said, ‘Alright.’ ”

But the negotiation wasn’t over yet.

“If you want me to do the job," Sheri recalls thinking, “and if you want me to do half the work – I mean, you’re not telling me that I get to phone it in – you’re gonna have to pay me the equally.” After much hand-wringing, management gave in.

One year later, that boss was gone, and the Gracie Awards named her the top female radio personality in America. Sheri has since won four more Gracies, most recently in 2016. “So,” Bob deadpans, “I’m a genius.”

As you’ll hear in the samples below, it’s their chemistry that has helped put them on affiliate stations across the country.

And they’ve embraced openness with listeners as much as laughter. Lynch’s dysfunctional-family stories of being raised in poverty by a father who was “a scrappy little gangster meth cook” are legendary, and Lacey calls publicly sharing the pain of losing two adult sons in just 14 months “the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“When I took this job, it was a lark,” Sheri says. “I thought it would last about six months, I’d get fired, and I’d have a great story to tell. I never thought in a million years that this would be a career. I mean, I grew up in northwestern Wyoming without (radio or TV).

“So when people ask me what radio is for me, I want you to imagine going out on a Tinder date with someone that looks really shady – then you wake up one day and you’re married with kids, and this is the love of your life.”

Luckily for her audience -- and the industry -- her heart remains in radio.

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Bill Troy is a longtime radio vet who also works extensively in the online marketing world. This time he shares insights from his new book, Clicksand, and shares what his findings can mean for YOUR career.

After successful stints programming and managing radio brands, he founded TroyResearch, the first online market research firm for the broadcast industry. As they created a worldwide footprint, next came global consumer brands like Sony, Disney, Nestle and Enterprise.

Six years ago, Bill started a second company, Civilis Marketing, which helps companies build business relationships using today’s online marketing tools.

This experience has led him to write a book that is challenging many ‘first generation” online marketers, including companies like Google. His new book Clicksandreveals insights he’s uncovered, and today, Bill’s crusade these days is to help brands, including radio stations and hosts avoid or escape the Clicksand trap, so they can compete and WIN in our evolving mediascape.

Sunday, February 11, 2018

Jonathan Drake is proof positive that a career in radio and having a life CAN coexist!

Claiming he was drawn to a radio career mostly because of the free concert tickets and the form-fitting uniforms he gets to wear that nobody ever sees (because, hey, it’s radio!), he’s also put family first, by avoiding the ‘radio nomad’ trail that has plagued so many of us.

After working around the Midwest with stops in exotic locales like Joliet, Bloomington and the well-kept secret that is Des Moines, Jonathan was transferred to the Champaign-Urbana market by Saga Communications, where he has settled in as Operations Manager of their Illini Radio Group.

In addition to his management duties, Jonathan has accompanied Champaign-Urbana radio listeners from the workplace through traffic for well over a decade as afternoon drive host on Mix 94.5.

Jonathan is not the only one married to the market! Spouse Laura heads the Champaign-Urbana Chamber of Commerce as the ‘better half” of 'thee' power couple of “CHUR-bana”!

Sunday, February 4, 2018

Ross Brittain has been a mainstay morning drive time on-air personality since music radio transitioned from AM to FM. He’s worked in major market stations nationwide including Atlanta, Cleveland, Philadelphia and New York City.

His vast experience ranges from stints at 77WABC to ‘CBS-FM in New York. His “Z Morning Zoo” and “Breakfast Club” shows have entertained audiences waking up for nearly four decades. His talents not only include radio, but he has made numerous TV appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN & Fox.

Previously, Ross did the evening news in Atlanta, hosted a talk show, a game show and even had a nightclub act entertaining people. He has also hosted several syndicated radio programs.

He was named Philadelphia Morning Personality of the Year for two consecutive years and was twice named the Major Market Air Personality of the Year. He’s hosted several syndicated radio programs currently is the editor and publisher of the popular prep service, “The Ross Brittain Report” and works on-air for WCBS-FM in New York City.